Buzz
In 2013, the Academy Awards officially embraced the simpler name, 'The Oscars,' inspired by the famous golden statue awarded to winners. 'We're rebranding it,' said Neil Meron, co-producer of the Oscar show, to The Wrap at the time. 'We’re not calling it the '85th annual Academy Awards,' which feels a bit outdated. It’s now simply 'The Oscars.' But the real question is, where did the statuette get its iconic nickname?
One popular explanation is that the name for the Academy Award of Merit (officially called the statuette) was first used by Academy librarian and future Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Director Margaret Herrick. The story goes that when Herrick saw the statue for the first time in 1931, she remarked that it resembled her Uncle Oscar. Emanuel Levy, the author of All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards, notes that journalist Sidney Skolsky, who was present at the time, later wrote, 'Employees affectionately began calling the famous statuette 'Oscar.''
The earliest documented instance of 'Oscar' being used as the nickname for the statuette dates back to a 1934 article by Skolsky in the New York Daily News, although there’s no concrete evidence that he was the one who coined the term. In his 1975 memoir, Don’t Get Me Wrong, I Love Hollywood, Skolsky shared that he may have drawn inspiration from a classic vaudeville joke: 'Will you have a cigar, Oscar?'—a playful attempt to poke fun at the Academy Awards.
"It was my first time attending the Academy Awards when I decided to give the golden statuette a name. I wasn’t trying to legitimize it. The pretentiousness of that particular Academy Award bothered me. I wanted to humanize the golden figure. ... By the time I reached the Western Union office on Wilcox at twelve thirty to file my story, I had listened to endless industry chatter and acceptance speeches since seven-thirty... There I was, with my notes, a typewriter, blank paper, and that Chandler-like feeling. People can be irritating. The word was a crowd of individuals. I’d show them—acting so superior about their prize. I’d name it. A name that would strip away their false dignity. I needed a magical name, and fast! Then I remembered the vaudeville shows I’d seen. The comedians would joke with the orchestra leader in the pit, saying, 'Will you have a cigar, Oscar?' The orchestra leader would reach for it, and the comedians would back away with a humorous remark. The audience would laugh at Oscar. I started typing... 'The Academy Awards were received positively in Hollywood, with little to no dissent... The Academy made sure the results were honest, announcing that voting would continue until 8:00 PM the night of the banquet... Then many stars arrived late and demanded the right to vote... Voting extended until 10:00, two hours after the ballot boxes were supposed to close... King Vidor remarked, 'This year, the election is on the level'... Which led to many comments about previous years... Even though Katharine Hepburn wasn’t there to accept her Oscar, her long-time companion, Laura Harding, was present and heard Hepburn receive applause for a change..." Over the following years, whenever I wrote about the Academy Award, I called it 'Oscar.' In a short time, 'Oscar' became the accepted name. It was the magic name."
A September 11, 1939 article titled "Mouse's Return" in TIME magazine seems to support Skolsky’s claim, stating:
"This week Sidney Skolsky joined the growing team of writers at Publisher George Backer’s New York Post. Hollywood believed Backer had made the right choice, as Skolsky was considered one of the most skilled columnists in the business (he is credited with coining the term 'Oscar' for the Academy Awards) and by far the most popular..."
Although Skolsky has some evidence to support his claim, doubts still remain about whether he was the one who invented the nickname. Some argue that during Walt Disney’s Academy Award acceptance speech for Three Little Pigs in 1934—the same year Skolsky first reported on the Awards—Disney referred to the statuette as his 'little Oscar,' suggesting that the name was already a common term within the industry. While the term Oscar was widely used in a mocking context (as Skolsky said he did), this theory posits that Disney may have been the first to use it positively in public.
Perhaps Herrick really did think the statuette resembled her uncle, or maybe Skolsky truly coined the name (if he didn’t, he certainly helped popularize it). Ultimately, the true origin of the Academy Award statuette’s name—'Oscar'—remains a mystery.
The concept for the design of the Academy Award statuette was conceived by MGM director Cedric Gibbons. His vision was for a knight holding a sword, standing atop a film reel. Sculptor George Stanley was then commissioned to bring this design to life and create the actual statuette. The inaugural Academy Awards ceremony took place on May 16, 1929, in the Blossom Room of Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel. It wasn’t until 1939 that the Academy officially adopted the name Oscar for the statuette.
Interestingly, the Academy explains that the five spokes on the film reel beneath the knight represent the original five branches of the Academy: writers, directors, actors, producers, and technicians.
Daven Hiskey runs the wildly popular website for interesting facts, Today I Found Out. To subscribe to his 'Daily Knowledge' newsletter, click here.
This article was originally published in 2013.
